The Joker came back several more times. He'd taken to his threats. He yanked out my toenails and fingernails before cutting them off, pulled my remaining teeth, drove a screwdriver into my legs, and dislocated every joint I had. The water boarding didn't stop either. All the while, demanding me to tell him when the invasion would begin with that creepy voice of his.

After I was left in my cell, still conscious, to mellow in my misery, I summoned my Ghost, and quickly killed myself with a clawed hand to my heart.

I jolted as I revived, and immediately summoned my Ghost again. I was not going to stay here with that maniac and his promise that next time he'd scoop my eyes out. I could take the pain from the other methods, but I didn't think I could take my eyes being taken out while I was awake. I broke my bindings quickly, and had my Ghost tear down the door as quietly as I could. That didn't exactly go to plan as the door screamed as it were pulled off the hinges.

I waited by the side of the door, listening for a guard to come by and investigate the noise, but none came. Cautiously, I entered the one way hallway. Nobody was there. I stepped quietly across the concrete, my Ghost leading the way.

I found my way around, often times looping around by accident and getting myself turned around as I searched for a way out. Oddly enough, I didn't find many guards here, mostly just cells. Few of them held prisoners, but I decided it was probably for the best that they stayed where they were. None of them looked like they'd received similar treatment as I had, and had beds and a source of water and a way of relieving themselves.

Some of the awake prisoners asked me to release them, others cowared away from me, and yet still some didn't acknowledge me.

Finally, I came to the first door that wasn't to my cell. This one opened without a sound, and peeking around it, I saw a mass of guards milling around. No doubt they knew of me, so I used my Ghost to create a distraction.

My Ghost made it's way into another room, empty of guards, and started making as much noise as possible by knocking around the furniture and banging on the walls. The guards sprang from their places, and ran into the room, however a small contingent decided they were going to secure the prisoners. Just in case.

Crap. I closed the door and looked for a place to hide. Nothing. Desperate, I hid against the wall where the door would be when opened.

The door slammed open, hitting me instead of the wall, and the guards rushed through. I peeked around the corner, and saw them rushing down the hallway and out of sight.

I breathed a sigh of relief, and ducked out the door. Problem was, there were three unicorn guards still in the room, and they all saw me enter.

"Uh, hi?"

"GET HIM!" They bum rushed me, which was honestly funny to watch since they all crashed to the ground in an awkward tackle after I leapt to the side. I ran to the door not being occupied by guards trying to fight my Ghost and the furniture, and got the hell out with the three guards in hot persuit, sending spells at me that barely missed.

I took a quick turn, ran a small ways, and took another turn, only to barrel over a very large white... what did that first pony say? Whatever, I'm calling them whats-its. Anyhow, I basically ran into it, impaling my stomach on that long horn of hers.

I was stuck gagging, a long, thin horn protruding through my torso to the other side as I lay above a startled woman. This was actually the first pony I'd seen wearing clothing and no, armor doesn't count.

She hastily activated her horn, which burning inside of me, and managed to remove me from her horn, and throw me across the room.

I landing heavily, and immediately started crawling away. I brought my Ghost from the room it had distracted the guards in, crashing through several walls.

It arrived in the hallway, bursting through the wall as I was begging the recovering pony to not hurt me. The pony was alarmed by this, staring at the gaping hole with nobody there.

"Look, I'll just be on my way out, and you won't hear from me. But if you try to stop me, I will fight, and you won't be able to keep me from breaking down as many walls getting out as I have to."

I didn't wait to let her respond. I turned around to run only to be tackled to the ground and stunned by some one new. I tried to sit up, by my face was grabbed, and pushed back to the ground hard enough to knock me unconscious.

*Shining Armor*

I breathed a sigh of relief as the human relaxed into unconsciousness. Until we examined his cell, we wouldn't be able to determine how he escaped.

"Are you alright Princess?" I asked, still panting from the long run over.

"I am fine, but I worry about him." She said, pointing at his body, a pool of blood pooling around him and getting on my hooves.

"Horseapples," I cursed, "we need to get him into the medical wing fast! How'd he even get this?"

"Not necessarily. I'm not as much of a one trick mare that my subjects take me for." She said charging her horn, "I also know healing spells." She launched the spell onto the human, just as he was waking up.

"No wait! Don't!" And it hit him.

"As for how he got it. I'm afraid he accidentally ran into me and fell on my horn. I hope he doesn't take it personally."

The human growled in pain on the floor, clutching his stomach and writhing, "Ugh, what did you do to me!? It hurts even more now! Like it's gonna-" he was cut off when his torso literally blew up, a larger gaping hole right through his stomach. He screamed in pain, clutching his open torso for a few seconds, before he went limp, his eyes open.

Silence. We didn't move for a few seconds before Celestia screeched, "BY FAUST I KILLED HIM! How could that happen? It was only a healing spell?" She fell to her knees, clutching her now blood soaked face, staring at the body and the pieces of organs that had splattered around.

Shining Armor didn't answer. He was staring at the human stomach that had impaled itself on his horn. Gingerly, he pulled it off, then dropped it to the ground. He turned to the side, and started throwing up explosively.

Just as he gave his last heave, the human gasped, jolting upwards. He patted down his stomach, sighed in relief, then looked at us.

"What the fuck-" *BAM*

I'd hit him across the face, almost screaming zombie. Examining him on the floor, we could see that his wound had healed over, not even scarring.

"What in Tartarus is going on?" I asked.

Shakily, Celestia responded, "I believe that he has a rather, violent reaction to magic, but once it pushes through, it works the way it should. We at least learned something about humans through this. If you would please return him to his cell, I need to destress."

"Of course. We'll have him questioned when he wakes up."

*Ed*

I moaned as I woke up, finding myself back in the chair. I groaned, angry with my failed escape attempt.

"Look who's awake? Our little escapee has returned." Joker said. I groaned, not anticipating what was going to happen.

"Today is going to be... special. You're going to tell me... how you escaped." A whip cracked over my chest. However, this one was different. It had many tails, and in them were sharp objects. So when the whip struck me, it stuck until he pulled it across and off my chest. I grit my teeth and moaned in agony as my flesh was ripped apart.

"Who helped you?"

"No one! No one helped me!"

He cracked the whip again, flaying more flesh, "Then how did you do it?"

"I broke the bindings." Anticipating the next question, and bracing myself, I summoned my Ghost.

"And how's that? You haven't escaped before."

"You came." My Ghost slammed a fist into his head and quickly broke my bindings. Taking off my blindfold, I saw Joker on the ground, not moving. I spit a luegy at him, and left through the open door. Again, no guards.

"They don't learn, do they?" I chuckled.

I ran down the corridors again, this time, searching for something to seal up my new cuts that were bleeding.

*War Room*

"So did you learn anything Captain?" Luna asked, having been updated about the escape attempt.

"Not much, but we did. The ropes he'd been tied with had been ripped apart, and the door to the cell had been forced open from the inside. The only thing I can think up is that he's really strong. But that brings up some very disturbing implications."

"Indeed. If he does possess this strength, then he has the ability to kill anypony with a single punch. However, he hasn't hurt anyone. For a scout of an invading force, they would probably be willing to kill anypony that gets in their way. And since he has this ability to escape, why did he chose now, of all times?" Celestia asked.

Luna seemed to have an epiphany, "I believe that I may have the answer to that. In the days leading up to his escape, his nightmares took a new turn. A disturbing laughing voice of a pony with no face had been cutting off his fingers and toes to eat. He hadn't dreamt of his escape plans, which leads me to believe that his escape was a spur of the moment decision. Something bad is occurring, and I fear what it may be."

"Indeed. Hopefully the Elements of Harmony get here quickly. They're only a days worth of travel out."

*Ed*

I'd found a room labeled as prisoner belongings in my wandering, so I ducked inside to find no one there, but nearly a hundred lockers with names on them. Mine had been labeled "Human".

I used my Ghost to rip the door open, and collected my things. No more freeballing, thank God. My shirt had a bad burn hole in the middle, so I decided to put it to use with my lighter, so I could keep these scars.

I rolled my shirt up, and bit down on it. A took a deep, calming breath, and flicked the lighter on. I held the lighter to my gaping wounds unflinching, cauterizing them closed. When it was finally over, I sighed in relief, and closed the cap over the flame.

With that done, I retrieved my gun and knife, placing them in their holster and sheath respectively, and headed out of the room.

I came across the same door to the outside as before, and again, I peeked around the corner. Still more guards. Not wanted a repeat of last time, I looked around for something that could help me. What I found, was a massive vent. I couldn't reach it from here, but my Ghost could help me up, and I did just that. The vent came open, and I slipped in. I dispelled my Ghost, and crawled through the vent.

It wasn't very cramped in here, allowing me enough room to comfortably crawl about, even turn around if I needed to. This gave me a good reason to really doubt their security. I mean, it really sucked. No guards for the cell blocks, no alarms, easy access to the door, and now this? Almost made me laugh.

I crawled along, and found a vertical vent. Peering through, I saw an empty room. Perfect. I removed the vent, and jumped out. I didn't really care if I got hurt. If I did, I could just kill myself and revive. If I didn't get hurt, well, that's just a plus.

I landed feet first, onto a table. What I should have done in the vent, was look down, because then I would have seen the three ponies sitting at the table. One of them I had impaled myself on.

"Goodbye!" I yelled, making a run for the door, only to be tackled again. The white guy had grabbed my legs and was trying to shift upwards to further control me.

"Fuck off!" I twisted to deliver a swift punch to the side of the head, dazing him enough for him to loosen his grip so I could scramble.

I got to my feet and took only two more steps when the other two tackled me to the floor, grabbing my arms quickly to keep me from swinging. However, their heads were in good positions for a reverse head butt.

I jerked my head back, and felt my skull impact one of theirs, and kept repeating until they let go.

"You insulant little-" *CRACK* I interrupted the blue one with a well placed elbow, knocking her on her back.

"Right back at you assholes!" I yelled, punching the white one. She took it much better, hardly even flinching. I blinked, and sent another at the soft bone behind her eyes. My fist impacted against her palm. My other fist had the same result.

I looked at her with surprise, "That's enough. We're settling this now." Her horn started lighting up.

I pulled my fists out of her hands to raise them up in front of my face, "Don't kill me!"

*BAM* The blast of magic hit me. It felt like someone had turned on a jumper cable inside my head while my brains tried to push their way out of any orafice that it could, and I screamed in pain. I couldn't move any more than that, so I was stuck looking at the white thing whose eyes were glowing.

*Celestia*

I had entered his memories quicker than I had expected, and I was getting more and more frustrated about not finding any plans, but as long as I was here, I might as well learn about our enemies.

I started at his earliest memories he still had, when he was 6 years old and watching the news with his mother. I myself shared the terror of watching the massive sky scraper that his memory placed as "The World Trade Center", be rammed by a plane. The building poured out thick black smoke, and the few close ups the tv had, showed people jumping to their deaths.

On the ground, it was chaotic. People were running one way to get away from the burning building and the debris, while firemen and police rushed to try and save people. Then the towers collapsed, engulfing the cameras and obscuring the view on the tv.

I moved on quickly, basically skimming over the information. I came to his high school years. He was relentlessly and harshly bullied and harassed over being Russian, which I learned was a country rival to the one that he lived in. His father, early on, told him that Murchovs don't lie, which he seemed to take to heart.

When he became a senior, he got a girlfriend, a pretty young woman. Ed adored her, but I could see something in her eyes that made me not trust her. She was just... off in the way she acted. Finally, when Ed graduated, he enlisted with the Marines. Boot camp was miserable all around, and much more brutal than even our special forces training, and had included brutal psychological torment and training, but Ed endured, and actually enjoyed some of it.

That was as far as I could go when I was suddenly ripped out of his mind. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and looked over to Luna, the owner of the hand.

"Sister, you need to stop for now. I do not think that the prisoner will be able to handle much more."

Looking over, I saw what she meant. Ed's eyes had rolled up into his head, bleeding from there as well as his nose and ears. His entire body was twitching from his odd position, on his knees and leaning so far back it looked like he should be falling over. Then there was that strange ululating sound that he was making.

I reached out tentatively, and touched his knee. Suddenly, his eyes rolled back to see, and he looked straight at me. He screamed, an unholy, unnatural scream of terror as he backpeddled away from me as quickly as he could from his position.

"STAY AWAY FROM ME!!" He cried in terror. He started crawling away in a way that dragged his legs, whimpering in pain.

I flinched in shock. This... reaction was something that disturbed me to my core, and I realized something. In my haste, I had violated one very, very important value. Ones' life memories were not something to be forced to give from a spell, and was dangerous for the subject to endure. I had hurt him in body, and in mind by forcing him to relinquish his memories.

"Ed, I'm sorry. I-"

"SHUT UP! Don't talk to me! Stay the fuck away!" He screamed. I felt my heart wilt, ashamed that I had done something so wrong, and had instilled such a fear in somepony, even if they were the enemy.

Shining stomped a hoof, "Don't talk to the Princess like that!"

"Shining, it's ok. He has every right. For now, let's just get him to his cell."

*Ed*

I was scared. Truly, honestly scared. It wasn't the pain that scared me, it was the fact that these ponies held such a power as to force themselves into your mind. Luna I didn't really mind. I actually appreciated that she ended my nightmares, and that was as far as she ever went. But that white one forced her way into my mind, forced me to remember things I had tried to forget.

And now I was in my cell, where the Joker was no doubt going to take his revenge on me. I should've killed him. I should've fought through the terror and tried to run when I had the chance.

"Welcome back, human. You gave me quite the welt. I'm going to return the favor. And since healing magic works on you, that means I get to have some special fun."

I prayed that I would die, and stay dead. I tried to summon my Ghost, but like always when I was scared, it didn't come out.

*Hours later*

I sagged in the chains. Joker had been very methodical in his choice of torture. First was the whip with many tails. After that, he drove iron nails under my fingernails and toenails. He left those in there as he broke my bones and electrocuted me. After being satisfied with that, he removed the nails, along with my finger and toenails, and used his bolt cutters to cut off my toes and fingers.

But it seemed as though he wasn't finished, because he cut my tendons, making me unable to use my legs or my arms. The pulled out my teeth, and then he had chuckled.

"You won't be needing that blindfold anymore." He tore it off, and I watched with horror as he took a sharpened spoon, and slowly scooped out my eyes. Then, the last method of his torture came. He slowly, inserted what felt like a blade into my throat. He went straight for my vocal cords, because I could no longer scream. I knew he'd missed my veins and arteries because I wasn't feeling fuzzy. Wished he had though, then I could heal.

I was blind, mute, my limbs paralyzed, my body was broken, and my mind was muddled with all the pain. The Joker had left me, saying he'd bring a unicorn healer down the next day, maybe.

So I hanged there, crying blood. Quietly. Never before, had I ever wished to die than at that moment. And my Ghost didn't return.

Author's Note

Only a few more chapters to go!